Philharmonie
Debussy – Prélude à l’après-midi d’une faune
Boulez – Dérive 2
Ravel – Rapsodie espagnole
Alborado
del gracioso
Pavane
pour une infant défunte
Boléro
All good things must come to
an end – though not, we can now be sure, the recent near-exponential growth of
interest in Pierre Boulez’s music. The always-unpersuasive claims about the ‘box
office’, ‘elitism’, and so on have, this year, already been shown to be utter
nonsense. The Barbican sold out tickets for many of its ‘Total Immersion’
events; here again, a concert in which Boulez’s music made up half the
programme sold out. What his music, like that of any other great composer,
needs is at the very least excellent, committed performances. That was always
Boulez’s claim concerning the music of the Second Viennese School, and how he
showed that to be true! Now subsequent conductors are doing the same for his
music, no conductor more so than Daniel Barenboim. The greatest Beethoven
conductor alive, the founder of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra: that is a ‘name’
who will bring people to Boulez, and indeed one who uncontestably has. My
Festtage events thus went out on a high.
First came Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune. Barenboim
did not conduct the beautifully played opening solo (others were equally
beautiful), simply letting Guy Eshed get on with it. The baton was only lifted
for the entry of the orchestra. In a sense, that gesture – and that lack
thereof – prepared the way, consciously or otherwise, for the dialectic between
freedom and determinism that lies at the heart of so much of Boulez’s work.
This was, like Boulez’s VPO recording, a sultry account, almost as if Ravel’s
Spanish sun were already risen, but not at the expense of the ambiguity that
makes Debussy Debussy, and which may indeed be his most important legacy. I was
struck by the difficult-to-pin-down French sound Barenboim elicited from the
West-Eastern Divan, translucency not the least of its qualities. Gorgeous
string vibrato was equally welcome.
Of all of Boulez’s music, I
perhaps still find Dérive 2 the
hardest to grasp as a whole. I am in no doubt that the fault lies with me,
having no truck with a dismissal I heard in conversation with a distinguished
composer, who described it as ‘culinary’ – surely an insult worthy of the young
Boulez himself. Barenboim has said he considers it perhaps Boulez’s finest
work, and many others are especially drawn to it. My journey towards
understanding certainly seemed to be sped up by this fine performance from
Barenboim and his players, who exhibited still greater confidence than they had
in their Proms account in 2012. Whatever the ‘authenticists’ might say, and no one has
been fuller of scorn for them than Boulez, one is far likely to play Beethoven
better, once one has the music under one’s skin; the same is true of Boulez.
Barenboim’s exposition of the opening material was clear and pregnant with
possibility, faithful in the best sense to the work, just like his Debussy or
indeed his Beethoven. (How I wish he would conduct Pelléas!) The uncredited marimba player’s early contributions were
a particular joy, drawing me in to the musical argument. Michael Wendeberg,
whom I heard as piano soloist earlier in the week, was, for all his excellence,
very much an ensemble player here, his exemplary contributions clearly drawing
on his experience as a member of the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Counterpoint,
though not so much sonority, led me to think of Schoenberg’s First Chamber
Symphony, of which I have never heard a finer performance than under Boulez here in Berlin. Ebb and flow sometimes seemed to draw more upon the
composer’s Debussyan inheritance – or was that perhaps the canny programming?
It need not, arguably should not, be either/or. At other times, a more ‘mechanistic’
spirit was manifest, the contrast putting me in mind of Boulez’s early – and,
in their orchestral form, ongoing – Notations.
A wonderful bassoon solo (Mor Biron) seemed momentarily to evoke the opening of
The Rite of Spring, but whilst ‘derivation’
in Boulez’s sense may be the name of the game, there is absolutely nothing ‘derivative’
in the pejorative sense to this work. There is nothing enigmatic to the audible
‘derivation’, and this performance helpfully underlined its achievement. If I
still find the work a little daunting, I do so less than I did; and my
immediate reaction was that to hear again, preferably immediately, such a
performance would bring me closer still.
Ravel’s Spanish works were
the material of the second half, just as they had been for the WEDO’s
Proms concert last year. The Rapsodie
espagnole proceeded in quasi-symphonic style; certainly there was great
purpose to the performance, though not in any sense at the expense of sonority
and general atmosphere. The ‘Prélude á la nuit’ reprised and extended, made
personal to Ravel, the sultriness we had heard in Debussy. It was – and not in
an Ann Widdecombe/Michael Howard sense – very much ‘of the night’. The
brilliance of the opening of the ‘Malagueña’ was owed in no small part to the
excellence of the double basses. A darkened kaleidoscope revealed all manner of
riches. Quiet insistence of rhythm marked the ‘Habanera’, preparing the way for
a gorgeous celebration of sound in the closing ‘Feria’. Alborado del gracioso received a sparkling performance, colour and
rhythm working their Ravelian alchemy. As at the Proms, Barenboim rarely
conducted – at least with his baton. Pavane
pour une infante défunte was arguably a little too languid at times, but
that is to nitpick, for it remained a beautifully played performance. Boléro proceeded on its way for quite
some time without Barenboim raising his baton. It was a showcase for the
orchestra, but no mere showcase. Most important, the orchestra, if I am to go
on the stolen glances between desks, clearly enjoyed itself. As did we; as, I
think, did Barenboim. As, I think, would have Boulez. The now-inevitable Carmen excerpts offered brilliant,
generous encores.
